To live a well balanced, rewarding life of our dreams by day and sleep restfully at night.
Avoidance: a robber of sleep and producer of anxiety
Published April 16, 2012 | 
What have you been avoiding lately? A drawer full of unpaid bills? Filing your taxes? Asking the boss for that much deserved raise? Making that medical appointment?
When we practice avoidance we are inviting anxiety into our lives. How?
1. The things we are putting off doing don’t magically go away (and we know this).
2. It creates and prolongs any worry about these things
3. It gives our minds plenty of time to blow things up and out of proportion.
4. Avoidance makes us feel weak and not very good about ourselves.
5. During that “witching hour” we spoke about in our prior post, it is these things that we are avoiding that get churned about over and over again when all we desperately want to do is not think at all and sleep!
Taking action is a confidence booster and sleep producer.
Pulling our heads out of the sand and dealing with our issues and challenges will give us many benefits including:
1. We will feel greatly empowered. Even little steps will make us feel so much better about ourselves and the situation (call the Student loan company, pull those bills that have been piling up in the drawer, initiate that conversation with your spouse, etc.)
2. Once we start taking steps towards resolution rather than avoidance, so much free time and energy is freed up to live our lives, be in the present rather than worrying.
3. The magnitude of what we perceived as our problems will be much deflated once we start dealing with them.
4. We will get some perspective and realize things aren’t as bad as we thought.
5. Peace of mind will return (along with a good night sleep).
In Peace,
Debra
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Five ways to be affirmed
Published July 12, 2011 | 
The definition of affirmation is “Something declared to be true; a positive statement or judgment”.
We all need to be affirmed. When we are affirmed we feel supported and the vision we have for our lives gets strengthened.
Ways to be affirmed:
1. Writing positive affirmations in the present tense with a strong declaratory voice. Really feel it. For example: “I Am Now a published writer making an excellent living”. You can add extra oomph to your positive affirming declaration by then giving thanks for it. So: “I feel so thankful that I Am Now a published writer making an excellent living. Thank you!”
2. We feel affirmed when we are encouraged by others. Choose who you spend time with. That is so important! Have in your life loving,supportive, and positive people.
3. Be a loving, supportive, and positive person yourself! Don’t fall into the trap of negativity or self pity. We get more of what we put out there.
4. Stretch out of your comfort zone and actually take action on doing some of the things you’ve always wanted to do! It is amazing how much confidence you will feel when you do something that you at first may have been hesitant or scared to do. You will then feel more courage to stretch again, and again….
5. Who are you? Who are you really. I made up some business cards about a month ago that have The Warm Milk Journal name on it, and my name with the word underneath my name, “writer”. That is who I Am. I Am a writer! I keep one of these cards on my bedside table, on my computer desk, dining room table, in my car, I use them for bookmarks, and I have a stack in my purse that I am more and more passing out to people. I am affirming myself as a writer! Powerful stuff.
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.
- William Arthur Ward
We are what we think. All that we are arises. With our thoughts, we make our world
– Buddha
A blessed day to you,
Debra
Source for quotes: Self Improvement Mentor.com
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“Try your best”. I don’t like that saying and here is why
Published August 14, 2010 | 
How does the saying go? Always try your best! What does it mean to try, anyway? At best it is an attempt to do something. There is something non-committal about trying. Compare: “I’ll do it!” with “Alright, I’ll try…” With trying, there is always a way out. You can say, after you did not do something, “well, I tried”.
A wise gentleman I had the privilege of meeting a few years ago demonstrated an important lesson to me and it has stayed with me. He took his eyeglasses of his face and placed them on his lap. He said: “now, try to lift these glasses off of my lap”. I would start to do that and he stopped me and asked: “Now, are you trying to pick these glasses up or are you just doing it”? The answer was clear: I was clearly taking the glasses with my hand and lifting them up off his lap. There was no trying involved, I was doing it.
“You will die trying” my gentleman acquaintance told me.
The next time you are thinking about doing something, be committed and do it. Be a person of action .
Do your best- don’t try your best.
Debra : )
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Eating That Elephant One Little Bite At A Time
Published May 10, 2010 | Vegetarians out there: please pardon this metaphor- but truly, how would you eat an elephant? One little bite at a time. Often we take on way more than we can chew. We get overwhelmed. Stressed. Our brains shut down. The answer? One small bite at a time.
It goes back to those baby steps we have talked about. I figure, so long as I am moving forward and taking some kind of action on my goals, I am going to achieve success. Action is important. If our ideas and goals are solely in our heads, we are dreamers and that’s about it.We don’t, however, want to take on too much at once- put too much pressure on ourselves- and then have it all backfire because we get overwhelmed, discouraged, and quit.
Like all things in life- there needs to be balance. Small steps or bites, if you will.
I am continually reminding myself of this. The Warm Milk Journal, for instance, is a big project. Starting a new endeavor like this is a lot of work. There is a huge learning curve. There are parts of this project that come easier for me than others. I find the creative side a lot of fun and easier: the writing of the posts, reaching out and helping others, coming up with ideas for the Warm Milk Journal (because this is something I care and feel so passionately about). The more challenging areas for me are more the technical and business end of things that come with writing a blog. There is so much for me to learn and really I have just started. So I tell myself: baby steps, Debra. Small elephant bites.
I think if we enjoy the journey we will be happy with where we end up!
Debra : )
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What are you avoiding?
Published April 19, 2010 | Are there things in your life that you are avoiding? Procrastinating on? I find that when I am avoiding something that I know I need to be dealing with, I end up feeling anxious and doing a lot of tossing and turning during the night. Current issues in my life that I know I am doing this with involve financial matters and legal matters (involving my ex spouse). By day, I am a busy school teacher and when I am not on my job I like to recreate and work on The Warm Milk Journal. I find the last thing I want to do with my time and energy is deal with these matters. Alas, by ignoring them- they do not go away (sigh..if only it were that simple right?)
On the contrary, I find that the longer I put off dealing with these unpleasant tasks, the worse I end up feeling (anxious, my life a bit out of control, restless sleep, etc. etc.)
So what is the solution.? Remember those baby action steps? I think that strategy would be appropriate here.
In your journal, write down what are some things in your life that you know need to be dealt with but that you have been putting off? Next to each thing, write down one thing you can do about it. Don’t feel pressured to do everything on this list in one day- that would feel overwhelming and put you in your head back in the sand, procrastinating mode- but commit to doing one thing tomorrow on this list. Call that lawyer, call that creditor, make that annual medical check up appointment.
Over the weekend, I finally did a task on my list (calling my auto insurance company about a scratch I have on my new Honda). I had been putting this off for two weeks. Once I did it, it was a very good feeling that I finally took care of it. Now to do one more thing on this list today…and I will feel even better. It might be kind of inconvenient to but it feels better to be in the driver’s seat of my life and deal with things instead of avoiding and letting the anxiety over it build up. Often it is not as bad as we have it built up in our minds either. It was very quick and painless opening a claim with my auto insurer- much easier than I thought it was going to be.
Commit to doing one thing on this list. Then let the rest go until the next day. Chip away at it. You are in the driver’s seat. You will begin to feel empowered and rest easier at night.
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Posted in Self-empowerment | 
anxiety, avoiding, insominia, procrastination, taking action, to do list | 
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